Brave Zoey
by mongoose-bite
Summary: Zoey is always brave, but some things are more frightening than mere zombies, and it's funny what comes of a safehouse argument. Francis's PoV. F/Z sort of. Rated for language.


**Disclaimer:** Left 4 Dead is the property of Valve. No profit is being made off this fiction, and the author claims no ownership of the setting or characters.

* * *

I hate safehouses. There isn't room to spit in them, and the writing on the walls always makes my mood turn sour. Doesn't mean I'm not happy to see one though.

We were heading north, following the writing on those damn walls. Hopefully we'd finally find some help and not yet another clusterfuck, but I wasn't holding my breath. I was running low on ammo, and Bill was looking a bit worse for wear. A hunter had jumped him, round about the time I was tied up with a smoker, and his rescue had come a few seconds later than was comfortable. Not that I was worried about him, fuck no. Bill was a tough old bastard.

We all were. Tough I mean. Even if we hadn't started that way, and to be honest Louis looked like the kind of guy who couldn't change a light bulb when I first saw him, we were now.

Zoey was crouched in front of me picking off zombies as they climbed a chainlink fence, while I unloaded lead into anything that snuck up from the side. Great team, huh?

Zoey. Zoey was something else. Sure she was too young, too smart, and too skinny for my tastes, but the girl could shoot. She didn't complain, she didn't freak out, and she'd saved my hide more than once. I think we were all a bit crazy about her; even Bill had some weird father complex or something going for her. Well, maybe Bill just has a father complex in general. If he calls me 'kid' one more time, my next 'nice shot' will be between his eyes.

Louis unloaded what sounded like the best part of a clip into something behind us. See, sometimes safehouses aren't so safe until you clean 'em out. I really hoped he'd found one, or failing that some ammo.

"Hey, get in here!"

Thank Christ. Zoey and I ditched our position and made a run for it. I slammed the steel door behind us and we shoved crates and chairs and whatever else we could find against it.

"We made it!"

I was going to tell Louis that if he thought it was such a big deal maybe he should have baked a cake for the occasion, but Zoey replied first.

"Of course we did," she said simply. It wasn't that simple. Ever. But her quiet confidence helped a lot. Especially when for one reason or another I wanted to hit the other two. Louis veered wildly between celebrating and complaining, while Bill maintained an unbearable tougher-than-you attitude that pissed me off.

There wasn't a lot that didn't piss me off, especially after the outbreak. But one of those things was ammunition, and I gleefully refilled my pockets. Even after Bill had patched himself up, there were medkits to spare, and it was almost enough to put me in a good mood.

"Four hundred and thirty-two," I said, looking down the sights on my shotgun.

"Like you were counting." Louis rolled his eyes.

"If you had time to count you had time to kill another hundred of 'em," Bill added his two cents to the conversation. It was pretty obvious they were just jealous of my high score.

"You guys are bad losers," I pointed out.

"Hey, I took down a smoker by myself, and saved your arse at the same time, Francis." That was more like it. I didn't give a shit who killed what, but it was about time Louis stood up for himself. That's why Bill always has it in for me, it's because I give him a challenge.

"You boys take on a tank and then maybe you'll have something to brag to your mothers about."

"This is the part where you tell us you killed a tank armed only with a hunting knife, right Bill?" I asked sarcastically, and Louis chuckled.

"Now listen, when I was in the army-"

"God! Will you all shut up?" Zoey slammed the magazine home in her assault rifle, and glared at us. "Just stop….dickwaving, all right?"

Zoey saying the word 'dickwaving' struck me as funny, and I chuckled, which is, as I know from experience, a bad idea when faced with an angry female, but I could rely on Zoey not to take it too seriously. She rolled her eyes and climbed up the ladder to the upper deck.

The three of us were staring silently at each other when she leant down and added, "Five hundred and six!"

The tension suddenly evaporated and we relaxed, chuckling. Bill found a spot near the wall and lit another cigarette from the butt of the old one, and Louis stretched out on the concrete floor, his rifle cradled in his arms as he tried to get some rest. I scratched my head and remembered that I hated safehouses. They were always so fucking boring. Four people jammed into a closet without so much as a chair between 'em, and nothing to look at but the writing on the walls.

Eventually I got it into my head to go and see Zoey, who remained perched up on the other level. I climbed the ladder and peered over the edge of the floor at her.

"Hey," she said in a friendly tone, quiet enough not to wake Louis assuming he'd actually managed to get to sleep. I took this as a sign that she wasn't mad anymore and climbed up and sat against the opposite wall, my forearms resting on my knees. Zoey had been going through the supplies left in the safehouse, and had built herself a little wall of tins against one of the shelves.

She offered one to me and I shook my head.

"Were you really counting?" she asked.

"No. Were you?"

"No."

"You still won," I pointed out.

She shook her head, "If no one was counting how could I win? I don't understand guys."

"Really? There's not a lot to understand." She gave me a thanks-for-nothing look and I relented, "I was just relieving some tension. It was a tough fight today."

"Are you saying I shouldn't have interfered?"

"Of course not. You've got every right to relieve some tension too," I grinned. I certainly didn't expect her to put up with that kind of bullshit in silence. I ain't the kind of guy who thinks women shouldn't be heard or that kind of crap, and there's always a chance someone would have eventually take it too hard if we'd kept arguing.

It had been a tough fight that day though. Bill and I had been put out of action at almost exactly the same time. Louis had rescued me, and I assumed Zoey had gone after Bill. I frowned; the silly girl had better not be feeling guilty for Bill's injuries. That sort of thinking just leads to more crap fighting, I reckon.

Then again, Zoey wasn't the type to beat herself up or mope. If we all survived, which we had so far, that was the best anyone could hope for. And her fighting was never crap. I wasn't obsessing or nothing, I was just thinking it was crazy how brave she was, how nothing seemed to get to her.

Zoey sighed, "I suppose I should go and apologize later."

"Huh! Why?" I asked, amused. "I never apologise."

"Yeah I know, Francis. I actually thought you were going to when you first came up." She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender, "I have no idea where I got that impression from. I'm sorry."

I realized she had just apologised for expecting me to apologise. Unbelievable. She seemed to realise how silly it was too, and we were suddenly grinning at each other without another word being said. Out of nowhere, electricity was flowing, that old black magic that even the end of the world ain't gonna kill. Maybe it wasn't out of nowhere; we were all crazy about her, 'not my type' be dammed.

She was almost laughing. Her grin was wide enough to show off a row of teeth she'd probably gone through hell at high school getting bracers for. Her nose wrinkled and her eyes sparkled. I was grinning too. I'd shake my head because I wasn't sure what was so funny, and then I'd meet her eyes again and she'd look away.

It wasn't like I was gonna ask Bill to marry us or nothing but it was a good feeling. A really good feeling. Course, in a world like this one, nothing like that's gonna last.

Her smile faded, and she suddenly looked solemn and thoughtful. She was still looking at me, but it wasn't a look I liked. She'd seen a lot of horrible things, we all had, but she looked, right then, like she was coming to a horrible realization. Her expression was bleak, and kinda lonely. Brave Zoey had seen something that frightened her.

She was looking at me, but it was like it wasn't me she was reacting to. I got it. I get it. Girls like that are in no way for guys like me. She was a smart girl from a good family, with good grades and a life to look forward to, or she had been. And she was just realizing that the best she was gonna get, and what she'd wanted, was a tattooed brute fifteen years older than she was. Some part of her had given up and had accepted that, and looked forward to it, even for a minute. Yeah, I wouldn't have been real happy in her place, neither.

I exhaled, and ran my hand over my head. It was probably time to go. I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring look before climbing back down the ladder again. I couldn't stop her feeling sorry for herself, but wasn't gonna stand for her feeling sorry for me.

"Francis…"

"Sorry, Zoey."


End file.
